


Jīshí

by tersa (alix)



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Angst, F/M, Holidays
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-13
Updated: 2011-12-13
Packaged: 2017-10-27 06:20:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/292570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alix/pseuds/tersa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kaidan goes home for his first Christmas after losing Jane Shepard at Alchera.</p><p>Intended as a little angst piece snapshotting Kaidan dealing with the grief of losing a romanced Shepard.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Jīshí

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Galleywinter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Galleywinter/gifts).



> Written for a 2011 Ficmas prompt: " _Kaidan/f!Shepard. But not really. I want to see what Christmas was like for him after the Normandy went down._ "

When November rolled around, Kaidan asked for leave. The captain gave him a hard side-eye for waiting so long, but the man really couldn’t deny it: Kaidan hadn’t taken real leave in five years, and the amount of leave time he’d racked up was more than the Alliance liked keeping on the books. So with a scowl and a reprimand not to do it again, the captain’s fingers flew over the screen and approved it. Someone else just lost their leave time, but Kaidan could only suffer a pang of guilt for it.

He hadn’t been on Earth since he’d left for basic. Stepping out of the spaceport, he had to pause, the stream of passengers parting around him except one man, paying more attention to the scroll of his omni-tool instead of where he was going, bumped into him and snarled. “Sorry,” Kaidan said diffidently, but the man just scowled and continued on his way.

 _Merry fucking Christmas to you, too, buddy._

His father was waiting for him at the curb next to a hovering aircab, the driver looking nonplussed by the lack of baggage Kaidan carried with him: a duffel slung over his shoulder, a small case for his pad, that’s it. _I can’t offload my real baggage_ , he thought. Jane’s face surfaced from his memories, smiling at him; that first glimpse of her behind the faceplate with the Normandy burning around them.

“Everything okay?” his father asked.

“I’m fine,” Kaidan lied.

It was the same at home, his childhood home, things both so familiar and so different all at once. The rooms were the same, but they’d re-arranged the furniture. New pictures hung on the wall: his OCS graduation photo. One he’d sent back from his first assignment on the Kohima. The one the Alliance had sent them when he accepted his medal for the defense of the Citadel. He stopped in front of that one, as if looking at a stranger. The man in that photo looked happy, content, _optimistic_. To his left, in the background, Jane stood, grinning.

“We were so proud of you,” his mother said unexpectedly from his shoulder. “And when the Normandy went down, so very, very frightened.” She put her hand on his back, as if to reassure herself of his presence.

The touch broke him, reminding him of _her_ , the small touches she would steal during those last couple of months, when they fooled themselves that no one was looking, and the raw emptiness that he’d tried to ignore welled up to consume him. Tears came, tears he’d tried so very hard to be done with, and then feeling his mother’s concern, great, rending sobs, and everything blurred as he turned to her and clutched at her tiny shoulders as if he was just a child again, her child, and she murmured soothing words to him in Teochew just as she had in his earliest memories, her hand stroking his hair.

Finally, the grief spent itself out, and he simply clung, arms wrapped around her, feeling the dampness of her shirt against his face and not wanting to let go. But she extricated herself gently, not unkindly, and he had no choice but to release her, allowing her to guide him to the small chesterfield and gather his hands in her small ones. With the twinkling of lights from the Christmas tree dancing across their skin, words came, haltingly at first, broken, then spilling out of Jane, their time together, what he _could_ share with his mother, then that final time, leaving her there because duty demanded it and she’d ordered him to.

“It’s not your fault,” his mother said sternly, as if her authority could make it so.

“I know,” he said, looking at her fingers, noticing how papery the skin had become, the signs of the inexorable advance of age, because he couldn’t bear to look her in the eye. He withdrew a hand. “Up here,” he tapped his temple, “I know that, but in here,” he rested his fingertips on his chest and left them there, hand sagging, “I feel like I should’ve done more. Like maybe if I’d stayed, I could’ve saved her. Or made her go. Like maybe it should’ve been me.”

“Don’t say that!” her voice cracked, sharp and swift, her fingers closing to crush his hand, and it cut him, the anger and terror in her voice. Removed enough from the initial loss, he recognized it as a shadow of what he felt now and understood it.

“I’m sorry, Ma,” he said contritely, falling into the language of his childhood unthinkingly. Catharsis was over, and he pushed aside the aftermath to pull together the shattered fragments of the stoic mask he showed the world. “Don’t worry, I’ll be fine. I’m getting better.” Squeezing her fragile fingers, he gave her a tenuous smile and something to do to make her feel like she was helping, even though it wouldn’t. “Some cookies might help with that.”

She laughed, a choked little sound, but her expression brightened with fondness and she rose from her seat to go into the kitchen.

Later that night, with his parents having turned in and the streets silent for Christmas Eve, Kaidan went out into the frosty air in his old backyard with a shot glass and a bottle of _horilka_. The oak tree they’d planted when they’d moved in now arced skeletal branches overhead, and he searched the heavens amidst the spidery tendrils for an empty spot he’d memorized from the star charts before disembarking. Pouring himself a shot, he raised it to the sky in wordless toast then downed the drink, embracing the burn as it filled his belly. Refilling the glass, he paused, eyeing it. “I miss you.”

**Author's Note:**

> Additional info on the non-English words used in the fic:
> 
> The title is what Google tells me is phonetically Chinese for 'cornerstone' - "something that is essential, indispensable, or basic; the chief foundation on which something is constructed or developed" - and 'Ma' really is the Chinese version of 'Mom' according to my Singaporean expert.
> 
> The [Battle of Kohima](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Kohima) was, like the Battle of Normandy, a major turning point during World War II, this one in the Japanese offensive into India.
> 
> The _horilka_ mentioned in the fic is the Westernized spelling for the word горилка, which is Ukrainian vodka.


End file.
